The remote display of video data using consumer electronics devices has become a field of significant development. For example, the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) standard was developed to define a compact audio/video connector interface for transmitting uncompressed digital streams, and WirelessHD has become an industry-led effort to define a specification for the next generation wireless digital network interface specification for wireless high-definition signal transmission for consumer electronics products. These systems allow devices, such as computers, mobile phones, digital cameras and similar consumer devices to become transmitters of video data for display through a display device such as a high-definition television (HDTV), video projector, or similar device.
To reduce the amount of data transmitted in video systems, the data is often compressed through a coding scheme. A video codec is a device or firmware/software program that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression in which a much smaller compressed file is produced compared to a lossless compression method. The two basic lossy compression schemes use transform codecs or predictive codecs. In lossy transform codecs, samples of picture or sound are taken, chopped into small segments, transformed into a new basis space, and quantized. The resulting quantized values are then entropy coded. In lossy predictive codecs, previous and/or subsequent decoded data is used to predict the current sound sample or image frame. The error between the predicted data and the real data, together with any extra information needed to reproduce the prediction, is then quantized and coded. Lossy methods are most often used for compressing sound, images or videos, but lossless compression is typically required for text. Lossless compression is used when it is important that the original and the decompressed data be identical, or when no assumption can be made on whether certain deviation is uncritical. Typical examples are executable programs and source code. Some image file formats (e.g., PNG or GIF) use only lossless compression, while others (e.g., TIFF and MNG) may use either lossless or lossy methods.
The implementation of remote display systems using existing technology under present systems generally requires the development and use of proprietary coding and decoding schemes through one or more codec devices. Typical systems may combine multiple codecs or require the design of a non-standard codec. This requires increased development efforts and results in systems that are largely proprietary in terms of design and compatibility with other systems.
What is desired, therefore, is a remote display system that utilizes known or industry standard codec devices to reduce development costs and facilitate compatibility in deployment.